The B2B Inbound State of Mind: Build the Brand

Inbound marketing presents an incredible opportunity to communicate your brand messages to a broad audience that can become advocates to help share your message. Brand building is a long-term marketing strategy that coincides with a similarly enduring inbound marketing strategy.

According to Courtney Wiley of iMedia Connection, “The B2B buying process is fundamentally changing. 93% of B2B buyers use search to begin the buying process and 37% post questions on social networking sites when looking for suggestions.” These data points confirm that your B2B company should have a strong Internet presence centered on your website. Spreading your brand messages using varied and diverse inbound marketing activities increases your opportunities for being found online.

25 brand building inbound marketing tactics:

1. Write a post on your B2B blog.
2. Feed your blog posts to your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
3. Include button links to share your blog on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Delicious.
4. Comment on other trade or industry blog posts.
5. Join and post regularly to an industry-related forum.
6. Answer questions on LinkedIn, Quora and Focus.
7. Bookmark phenomenal content on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg.
8. Participate in a tweet chat and follow all participants.
9. Post @replies and retweets on Twitter.
10. Make personal and company recommendations on LinkedIn.
11. Host a webinar.
12. Live-tweet a business conference.
13. Write a press release.
14. Share industry news more often than promoting your own brand.
15. Add blog subscription and feed invitations in the side bar of your blog page.
16. Record a podcast and publish it to iTunes.
17. Create a LinkedIn group related to your business.
18. Search for, join and participate in LinkedIn groups related to your business.
19. Feed your blog to your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn groups you create.
20. Create simple videos and publish on YouTube and Facebook.
21. Launch your own social network on Ning to engage your prospects and customers.
22. Write guest posts for other blogs related to our business or industry.
23. Upload your presentations to LinkedIn and SlideShare.
24. Invite other writers to create guest blogs.
25. Write an ebook.

By promoting your promise and market differentiation with consistent, persistent content creation, inbound marketing can help you build your most valuable business asset: your brand.

Do you have a B2B inbound state of mind? Please share your methods for building your brand.